Energy company SSE took another dive into the North Sea on Monday with a $288m
(£178m) deal to acquire a 50pc stake in the Sean gas field from BP.

The household energy supplier has been gradually building an 'upstream’ gas production portfolio over the last two years to help provide gas for its customers, and to fuel its gas-fired power stations.

Monday’s deal follows an initial £278m splash in the North Sea in 2010, when it bought gas assets from Hess, and a £33m deal in November to buy stakes in gas fields from Perenco.

SSE has said the deals will provide both primary fuel and a hedge for its gas generation and supply activities.

David Franklin, SSE’s managing director for energy portfolio management, said: “We have made clear that SSE is proactively seeking new opportunities to increase our presence in upstream gas sector where assets can be acquired for a fair price, and that is exactly what this deal represents.”

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For BP, the sale is the latest in a series of disposals of its “non-core” assets as part of efforts to raise $38bn to pay for the 2010 Gulf of Mexico disaster. To date it has agreed to sell more than $37bn.

Trevor Garlick, regional president of BP North Sea, said: “The divestment of BP’s interest in the non-core, non-operated Sean field is consistent with our strategy of focusing on high value assets with long term growth potential.”

The Sean field, which is in the Southern North Sea, is operated by Royal Dutch Shell, which will have a right to pre-empt the sale to SSE.

Separately on Monday, Dana Petroleum received consent from the Department of Energy and Climate Change for a $1.6bn project to develop two oil fields - Harris and Barra - in the Northern North Sea. The project, which should produce more than 40,000 barrels of oil equivalent, will benefit from Government tax breaks to encourage investment.

Dana’s chief executive Dr Marcus Richards said: “We welcome the announcements by the Treasury this year to support oil and gas companies operating in the North Sea. This will help create a brighter future for the industry.”

A spokesman for Dana said that while the project had been helped by the tax breaks it was not dependent upon them and would likely have proceeded anyway.

Elsewhere in oil and gas, Fortune Oil shares leapt 18pc to 10.75p after it sold its 85pc stake in its natural gas business to China Gas Holdings for $400m (£247m) - more than Fortune’s entire market cap before the deal.

Fortune already has a stake of about 6pc in Hong Kong-listed China Gas and has an option to further increase that holding as part of the deal. It may also take two seats on China Gas’s board of directors and said it planned to play a key role in China Gas’s development.

The assets include a coal bed methane block in Shanxi Province and gas pipeline infrastructure in Beijing, Tianjin and Chongqing.